


Katabasis

by tmthesaurus (Duat)



Series: 11:17 [1]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: College, Cute, Gen, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duat/pseuds/tmthesaurus
Summary: Why does college have to be so hard?
Series: 11:17 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589263
Kudos: 6





	Katabasis

There was a door. On one side of the door was Esther, college freshman and aspiring… to-be-determined; on the other, her academic future. The door itself was frustratingly nondescript. This was her katabasis, damn it. Surely the universe could have provided an appropriately dramatic entryway. Esther glanced at the nameplate again, just in case it had changed since the last time she’d checked it, and knocked.  
  
“Come in.”  
  
Esther gulped and opened the door. The office was simultaneously nothing like and exactly what she expected. It was less an office and more a broom closet with delusions of grandeur. There was no desk. Instead, there was an overstuffed couch with a small table covered in books next to it, a laptop balanced precariously atop one pile. A bookcase was along the wall opposite the door, with more books lining its shelves.  
  
“Hi, Dr. Rice. I got your email.”  
  
“So I see,” said Dr. Rice. Esther giggled. Her laugh was higher than usual, bordering on shrill. “Take a seat, Miss Rosenbaum, and please relax. We’re just here to chat.”  
  
“Right,” said Esther. “Chat.” She knew perfectly well it wasn’t true; professors don’t email their students just to shoot the shit. Esther had a feeling she knew what this was ‘chat’ was really about, but they had to do this song and dance first. In theory, it would put her at ease. Maybe that worked on other people, but her mom worked in the HR department of some financial services firm—Esther couldn’t remember which one—and she tried that sort of shit at home all the time. It’d stopped working in middle school.  
  
“Would you care for a cup of tea?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Tea,” said Dr. Rice, gesturing to a tea set of questionable craftsmanship hidden among the books. The words “HAPPY MOTHERS DAY” were scrawled on the teapot. “Want a cup?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Dr. Rice pulled a chipped cup and saucer from beneath the table and placed them next to the tea set.  
  
“Shall I be mother?” she asked.  
  
“Uh, sure?” said Esther as the professor poured tea into each cup. She handed the chipped cup to Esther. “Thanks.”  
  
“You’re welcome.”  
  
Esther took a sip. It was good.  
  
“Thank you,” said Dr. Rice.  
  
“I didn’t say anything.”  
  
“You didn’t need to; your face was already doing plenty of talking.” She laughed when Esther scowled. In contrast to Esther’s borderline manic laugh, Dr. Rice’s laughter was rich and sonorous. It filled the tiny office with warmth. Esther soon found herself chuckling despite herself.  
  
Dr. Rice put her cup and saucer on top of the laptop. Esther braced herself for the inevitable collapse, but somehow the tower held strong. She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and relaxed into the sofa.  
  
“So, I couldn’t help but notice you haven’t submitted your essay yet,” said Dr. Rice. Esther froze. She knew it was coming, yet she still acted like a deer that had wandered onto I-91. “Are you just putting on the finishing touches?”  
  
“Not as such, no.”  
  
“What stage would you say it’s in? Unfinished?”  
  
“More like unstarted,” said Esther. “I don’t even have a topic for the essay. I just…” She sighed. “In high school, everything made sense. Here, I don’t even know where to begin.”  
  
“There’s not enough direction?”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Okay. Let’s put the assignment on the back burner for now, shall we?”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“What are your interests outside of my class?”  
  
Esther shrugged. “I don’t know. I like science, I guess.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Yeah, like, how exactly does Alexandria fly? What kinds of forces enable her to defy gravity like that?”  
  
“I’m afraid that’s outside of my area of expertise,” said Dr. Rice.  
  
Esther laughed. “I suppose so.”  
  
“Anything else?”  
  
“I listen to a bunch of podcasts?”  
  
“What’s a podcast?”  
  
“They’re like radio shows you listen to on-demand.”  
  
“And what’s your favorite?”  
  
Immediately, a dozen names leaped to Esther’s mind, not one of them even vaguely appropriate in this setting. What kind of a monster could look classy lady like Dr. Rice in the eye and explain _Hey That’s My Fetish_ to her? Eventually, she settled on the first podcast that wasn’t a transparent vehicle for empty smut.  
  
“There’s this one economics show I like.”  
  
Dr. Rice asked, “You like economics?”  
  
“I like this show.”  
  
“Tell me about it,”  
  
“Well, the latest episode is about the impact of NEPEA-5 on international trade.”  
  
“Parahumans again? Are you a cape geek?”  
  
“I guess,” said Esther.  
  
Dr. Rice looked thoughtful for a minute. After a while, she stood up and walked to the bookcase, bumping the table slightly in the process. Somehow, the jostling was strong enough to take the laptop out of standby mode yet weak enough to allow the tower it rested on and the cup of tea atop it to remain unmoved. For a moment, Esther wondered if her professor had the world’s mildest superpower, before dismissing the idea as ludicrous and turning her attention the now active screen.  
  
Dr. Rice’s desktop was as disorganized as her office, with icons littering the screen. The only part of the screen that was clear of clutter was a segment of the wallpaper containing a very young girl.  
  
“Is that your daughter?”  
  
Dr. Rice glanced back and grimaced. “Yes.”  
  
“She’s adorable.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“What’s her name?”  
  
“Alice.”  
  
“How old is she?”  
  
“She was four when the picture was taken. She would’ve been twelve this year.”  
  
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” said Esther.  
  
“You had no way of knowing. Let’s just talk about something else.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Dr. Rice picked up two books and returned to the couch. She sat and handed them to Esther. The thicker of the two was called _One Hundred Years of Solitude_. Its much slimmer counterpart was called _Memories of a Golden Morning_. Both books were written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  
  
“I think you might be interested in seeing how his writing changed with the dawning of the age of the parahuman. _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ was written decades before Scion’s first appearance; _Memories of Golden Morning_ was written a few years after. If you do find the subject as engaging as I suspect you will, you might wish to look into the impact of parahumans on magical realism in general.”  
  
“Uh, thank you?”  
  
“You can thank me when we know that the subject even appeals to you.”  
  
“Okay.” Esther stood up and walked to the door.  
  
“Oh, and Miss Rosenbaum?”  
  
“Yes, Dr. Rice?”  
  
“Working more productively in a structured environment doesn’t make you an idiot. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.”  
  
Esther grinned. “I’ll give it the old college try.”  
  
“Remember that the goal of a liberal arts degree is to learn how to think. You’re still just a freshman; none of you know how to think at this stage.”  
  
Esther laughed as she walked back to the elevator that would take her back up to the surface. This time, her laughter was ebullient, even though she suspected Dr. Rice had just burned her.


End file.
